This year has been a bad year for reading for me. School just took over my life and the times I had to just sit back and read were too few and far between. So next year I'm setting my reading goals a little higher than usual, which is a pretty terrible idea but oh well.

Here are my "goals":

1. Read all or at least a hefty portion of Richard Laymon's adult horror bibliography.

Laymon has came to be one of my favorite authors over the past year even if his obsession with tits becomes a little obnoxious after a while. I've so far read The Cellar (which I didn't care for), The Traveling Vampire Show (which I loved), In The Dark (which I thought was terrific), and Island (which was a lot of pulpy fun).

I'm hoping to buy a lot of his books in print.

2. Finish reading all of Kealan Patrick Purke's books.

This man is just brilliant and I loved all the short stories and novellas I've read by him. I can't wait to read Kin. :)

3. Finish reading all of Michael McDowell's books that are available from Valancourt Books.

I love this writer and I'm so sad I haven't gotten around to finishing his books yet. His Blackwater Saga is so good I'm at a loss for words when I try to even talk about it. If you haven't read it GO DOWNLOAD IT TO YOUR KINDLE NOW.

It has been so long since I wrote a good review on here that I think I've forgotten how. I know I really neglect my reading websites and just my reading in general these days, but I've been trying to get back in the hang of things. I started by reading two Richard Laymon books, which are good, easy, fun reads which I'll probably post reviews of later. I read these books rather quick and they helped me get out of my massive reading slump. I was going through my Kindle after I finished the second book trying to figure out what I was going to read next and happened upon The Bleeding Season. I tried reading The Bleeding Season last summer but I really couldn't handle it. I don't know whether it was due to my mind set at the time or what, but the book was too dark and slow-paced for me to really enjoy at the time. So I decided to try to finish it. I'm extremely glad I did.

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The Goodreads description of the book:

Alan, Tommy, Rick, Donald and Bernard were inseparable best friends living in the small, coastal Massachusetts town of Potter's Cove. A circle of five, their world was simple and happy until the day Tommy was struck by a car and killed. Nothing was ever the same. They were never the same.

Years later, as the four survivors-all unhappy, unsuccessful and marking time-approach their fortieth birthdays, Bernard suddenly commits suicide.

Within weeks of Bernard's death, one by one the mutilated bodies of murder victims are found in town, and as the three remaining friends attempt to solve the riddle of Bernard's suicide, they come to realize that he may not have been who or what they thought he was. His entire life may have been a lie, and rather than the sad, lonely and harmless person they believed him to be, he very well may have been a savage ritual killer, a bleeder of young women who conjured evil to fulfill his own demented dreams. To find the truth not only about Bernard, but themselves, they must delve into the darkness and those who inhabit it, a darkness that cradles an unspeakable evil so terrifying it could forever trap them in the shadows of the damned and shatter the very concept of their existence.

THE BLEEDING SEASON: Evil is a state of mind.

Evil is a state of mind.

Remember that.

I've never read a book dealing more with what evil actually is than this one.

And this is definitely not your typical horror story. This story is sad and at times you will want to put it down. It gets that sad. There is no scene in this book that is too gory (is that how you spell that?) or disgusting. It just isn't that kind of horror novel. This book builds atmosphere. Fuck, it chokes you with it and then makes you care about these characters who it puts through hell, literally and figuratively, at every turn.

But what really disturbed me about this novel is that it actually made me feel vulnerable just like the characters in it. Do we really know the people we love? Are we born evil or influenced by it. Is evil a state of mind or is it like a disease? Is it both?

It's hard to talk about this book, but I highly recommend it.

5 glowing stars

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I probably won't be on here much for a while because I have to go to this six week university program after vacation this week, but I'll try to make updates from my phone (which is a pain in the ass to do). Sorry about the inactivity. I'm reading Boy's Life by Robert McCammon right now and I'm definitely going to try to review that book, even though it might be harder than this book to review. I love it so far. :)

A lot of us horror readers have became really interested in the works of the late Michael McDowell lately so I though I'd share this interesting picture I found on Instagram! McDowell had a so called "Death Collection" of objects or photos relating to people's deaths in the 1800s and early 1900s. This is a picture user mysteriousplanchette took of some of the items. Strangely interested and happy that I found this.

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